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Vori hadn’t heard anyone coming over the pounding like a kick drum in her head.She reeled on her cousin, and the pounding tripled into a percussion section.“You told him?”
“Uh, yeah.”Alys laced the words withduh.“You can’t complete your vows to Baba without some help.You rescued him.He might as well be useful.”
“You told him about Baba?”Heat rushed to her cheeks.
“That’s not what we were talking about.”Her cousin frowned as though discussing private family business with the man who had loudly announced he didn’t want to be part of it wasn’t a problem.“Speaking of Baba, a ‘going home’ gift just arrived from our least favorite hag.”Alys tossed something shiny and gold at her.
Vori snatched the bracelet from the air, goblin greed for the gold overriding her frustration.“There are only spaces for three stones.Not the six here in the human realm.”
“Yeaaah, which is why Baba sent two cuffs.”Alys held up the other, twisting it slowly so the metal glinted in the light as if she beamed a laser for a cat to chase.
Goblin instinct had Vori grabbing it.“Anything else?”
“She sent a note.”
“You read it?”
“Of course.She says the glass will be ready for your trip home at midnight on your birthday.That the killer you’re chasing will join you in Kradnovtl.She says catch her, and you’ll find the rest of your stones.”
Of course.Baba Yaga had control of the only glass.Without it to travel through, any goblin—even a royal—would’ve been trapped here.Much as Vori had been.
Not that she’d minded.It’d been more escape than exile for her.She’d blocked most of her last night in Kradnovtl from her memory, but it rushed back in snatches.Her mother and Uncle Lenneck talking about the mad king’s plan to bleed her for the old gods.Her mother waking her in the middle of the night.Her mother running with her through the tunnels to the forest, to the goblin glass.Run, little queen, her mother had said.Run and don’t look back.
So Vori had.Now she couldn’t outrun the memories.She had to concentrate on the murders, on the blood vows.“Our killer has been collecting the amethysts.Why?To challenge whoever is ruling Kradnovtl so she can take the throne as a royal-blood?”
“Or to bring them all here and end the world,” Alys suggested.
“We have to stop her,” Perry said.
Vori ignored his implication that they had ever been or would ever be awe.“If the killer follows me through the glass, I can steal the stones she has taken from the humans and find the last one in Kradnovtl.That’ll complete the blood vow to Baba.”
“Takes a queen of thieves to catch one,” Alys said.
“I’m not.”The wordqueenmade Vori fight a shudder.She didn’t want to be queen, didn’t want the responsibility, didn’t want the blood-soaked hands that the crown of Kradnovtl required.
“Queen of shadows?”
“I’ll stay queen of nothing, thank you very much.But the killer will need that glass to come through.If she’s a lesser royal, the trip will cost her time and energy.That’ll be my best chance to catch her.
“I’ll help,” Perry said.
“What’s with the sudden hero syndrome?”her cousin asked.“Doesn’t seem your style.”
“He owned one of the amethysts,” Vori said.The words hung in the air like a death sentence.“He thinks his father has it.”
“Ooh, tough break.”Alys made a tsk sound that translated to “so over it.”
“Thanks for the sympathy,” he said.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Yeah, cousin,” Vori interrupted.“We need to talk about youmentioningless.”Like her blood vows with Baba Yaga or anything else to a man who had been disgusted with her goblin form, who’d refused her.
“Oh, look at the time.”Alys hurried toward the door.“Big brother needs my help with shipments to some shifters.Gotta go.”
So much for discussing boundaries.Vori didn’t know what to say to her almost fake fiancé, not with what they’d learned in the last few minutes.Too bad she couldn’t take the easy way out like her cousin.
Perry pinned his attention on her.It was intense and pulled her in.How she hated her reaction.
